Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams
by Nomad1
Summary: After the events of Infamous Iron Man and Iron Man 600, Victor returns to the ruins of Castle Doom in search of answers regarding Mephisto's illusion of his mother.


**Notes**: Written for shelkenz for Yuletide 2019.

**Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams**

Afterwards, Victor returns to the ruins of Castle Doom, bearing the scars of mistakes old and new. Foolishness to have believed there was merit in wearing a face other than the one that he forged for himself. Now that Stark has returned to take up his old mantle again, what was once tribute would appear mere imitation.

The new armour is shed, its time over. The old armour will replace it once again soon, and when he has the strength, he will raise the castle back to its former glory. An insurmountable task in the eyes of most sorcerers, but every stone here is part of the deep magical roots that tie him to Latveria. The monarch and the land are one; small wonder the country has collapsed in his absence, a hollow shell unable to stand up by itself.

He had hoped... no. Doom does not hope. He had simply experimented, and it is clear that the experiment has failed. Latveria cannot thrive without him, and so he must return to the yoke of duty. What has been lost of his former rule can be resurrected, as it has been many times before. However little he is accepted as a hero by the rest of the world, he has always been known as one here.

But other things are not so easily brought back.

The open wounds on his face will take time to become scarred again, but for now it makes little difference. The touch of hellfire haunts the injury, familiar but never becoming more tolerable. Demon-inflicted wounds carry a spiritual infection that no immune system could ever hope to overcome.

And they know their own. As he approaches the ruins of the laboratory where the false vision of his mother first appeared to him, the taint of Mephisto's corruption flares burning through his veins. Bitter irony that only in being fully healed could he have been truly vulnerable to demonic deception.

But then, would he have known it in his mother, regardless? After all, she was poisoned by it before he was born, its sting as much a part of every precious memory as any word or touch. He was forged in hellfire in the womb.

Perhaps that's why, despite all his knowledge, he remains defenceless before its beguiling manipulations.

His mother's soul is freed from hell. He knows this. Even Strange could verify it, if it were not intolerable weakness to ask. Mephisto has no hold over her, could not have summoned her back from a place where neither he nor Victor can ever follow. And yet her shade was convincing, far more so than Mephisto's risible effort to impersonate Reed Richards.

(Or perhaps the truth is he knew Richards far better than he ever did his own mother - but that is an abhorrence that he will not entertain.)

His own wounds were inflicted with malice, a deliberate curse placed on his soul, but the trace of demonic influence that lingers here is merely incidental. He has the power to cleanse it with ease; even the greater magic of restoring the castle would no doubt be enough to burn the evidence away.

And yet he hesitates. The true character of this summoning still eludes him. Was it merely a simulacrum, wholly animated by its demonic master's will? No doubt the likes of Strange would accept it as such without troubling themselves to look deeper, but what does a creature like Mephisto understand of imbuing such things with convincing emotion? He couldn't restrain his demonic nature long enough to portray a Reed Richards that would fool even the simpletons at SHIELD.

Yet nor can the spirit have been his mother's true presence. She is at rest, and he cannot, will not believe Mephisto has any way to draw her back under his influence again. Some in-between creature, perhaps? Hell, after all, is Mephisto's domain. He cannot devise every individual punishment, but sends his shades to torment victims in guises drawn from their own personal nightmares. Mephisto provides the driving cruelty, not the form.

So what, then, might such a spirit become when removed from its master's direction? The understanding could be valuable to him, the better to hone his tactics in preparation for his next excursion to hell.

This is not sentiment, but simple acquisition of knowledge, an act worthy of Doom.

The traces of magic left here are diffuse, no specific site to mark out a protective circle and create bounds to this resurrection. No matter. Doom fears nothing, and he will not shame himself by recalling the Iron Man armour, nor retreating from this place to seek out an older suit. A simple enchantment to reveal the presence of past magic will suffice.

He draws the strands of sorcery towards himself, weaves powerful potential from the magic in the earth... and then lets it go, undirected. Like smoke, blown softly through a room to see what currents are revealed.

At first there is nothing, only a shapeless cloud, but swiftly it begins to coalesce. A figure, growing clearer, features becoming known, though this is not the seeming flesh and blood form of before. Merely a translucent shade, a ghost of borrowed energy, as when his mother's image was last seen, fading before his eyes.

He has spent too much of his life watching his mother fade before his eyes.

"Mother," he says, and feels both young and old. He was little more than an infant when she was torn from him; now he has grown much older than she will ever be.

She looks on him with a mother's eyes that do not see his scars. "Victor," she says, and whether it is only his own will that animates this form or else some echo of Mephisto's dark intent, the voice is hers. "You have returned to me."

"Briefly. No more." To feed more energy into this shape would make it solely his puppet, tear apart what fragile threads of the original enchantment still remain. It cannot be sustained.

The smile that dawns on her face is sad and fond. "You always did have no sense of what to consider enough."

He curls his lip, and feels the sting of it in his fresh wounds. "There is work yet undone." How can anyone rest in this imperfect world? His certainty of the right path may have been lost, but not the understanding that so much needs to be fixed.

"There is always more work left undone." She reaches for his face with no true fingers to touch, and yet he feels the shiver of it, all the same. "Must you be the one to shoulder it alone?"

"Who better?"

Her expression softens. "No one better," she says, shaking her head faintly. "But that doesn't mean nobody else can do their part."

A bitter huff of air. Cooperation. What has it won him? Distrust from those who claim to judge him by his actions, and the contempt of pathetic would-be enemies who see his voluntary surrender as weakening resolve. Those who have fought him at every turn will not stand beside him, no matter how he bends himself to their requirements. It is foolish to humble himself further. He must do this alone.

Always alone.

The vision of his mother is dimming, losing what shadow of solidity she had. It will not be long now, but still he has nothing of the answers he sought here. "What would you have me do?" he says.

"This path," she says. Her detail is fading, but still the eyes remain. "Don't turn aside from it now. You have found your greatness. This is who you were always meant to be. You can do so much..."

But she is already gone, leaving him with nothing but her parting words.

Mephisto's words. In the end, this ghost was his creature, sent to torment Victor with doubts and foolish ideas. Perhaps the demon granted her a glimmer of true affection drawn from Victor's memories... but still, any counsel she gives is not to be trusted. It would bring Mephisto nothing but devilish glee to send him down a path of hopeless futility, chasing an acceptance that is never to be won.

His mother always taught him that when they had nothing else, they had their pride. She would not have advised him to debase himself, to keep jumping through endless hoops and try to prove himself to those who have no interest in ever seeking proof. These words cannot be hers.

Because whatever becomes of his future from here, one truth is self-evident.

Victor is done with playing the hero.


End file.
